His Dark Materials - BBC

OOh, two of my favourite things combined (His Dark Materials & LMM!). Although I pictured Lee Scoresby as a bit older and world-weary, I'm sure LMM will be amazing.
Dafne Keen to play Lyra, who seems perfect.
I'm excited too, but hope it's better than the movie...

They had the guy from the Big Lebowski in the film, Sam Elliot, who I thought was perfect. Not sure how this one will work. I'm interested to see who'll they'll cast as Lord Asriel, as there does seem to be a dearth of middle-aged actors of that type at the moment - Cillian Murphy's too pretty and Tom Hardy's too gruff.

I thought the second and third books were a bit of a mess to be honest, and I know the lack of a second film was attributed to the religious right, but I did wonder how they'd film them as the storyline was all over the place.

The film is garbage but I saw Part One of the NT production many years back and it was amazing; it had a young Dominic Cooper and Russell Tovey as Will and Roger, and Timothy Dalton (spectacular) as Azrael. I think it'll make a good miniseries, and although Tom Hooper is one of the most overrated filmmakers alive his John Adams miniseries was excellent.

Yes, that was good - and one of those welcome times when an excellent actor normally relegated to character roles gets to play the lead. Timothy Dalton is underrated, too! I'd love to have seen the NT production - it was on during my too skint/too anxious/too untogether to get see plays period.

For me, it will come down to how effective the daemons are. The puppetry in the NT version was great - but in the film I was less convinced - particularly as the short run time didn't give enough space to allow them to fully emerge. The whole daemon concept fascinates me - and done well should entrance an audience.

La Belle Sauvage has great sections about baby daemons - shows Pullman has really thought about his universe in detail.

Basically I want a daemon. And I want one now!

Sam Elliott was perfect as Lee Scorsby on the film, that big tash and texan drawl...I really dont see LMM in that part at all. I can't really remember many of the daemons names, but as soon as i think of Lee, i think of Hestor...

La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust) was beautiful. Maybe it could have had a chapter or 2 cut, but it was beautifully written but SO frustrating when you know there are still another 2 parts to come. I wish they could have all been released togather!

The NT adaptations were superb. BBC could do a lot worse than have David Harewood reprising his Lord Asriel. My worry is they will make this "small": another of those three or four part series which leaves you rueing a missed opportunity.

His Dark Materials is a big story and deserves to be given the full Lord of the Rings, HBO treatment. Not vicars drinking tepid tea and making polite conversation about the weather behind chintz curtains where the aspidistra flies.

I'm excited - cautiously - about this. I love the books. I never saw the NT productions because I was too young to make my own decision to go and pay for myself. I was aware of them though, and have always since thought of Anna Maxwell Martin as Lyra, even though I never saw her. I have a CD set which I love as a bedtime book, with a full cast and Phillip Pullman narrating - I really like that, although I don't like the Will in the middle book (they swapped him for book 3). I have no idea what Lin Manuel Miranda is like - he doesn't look like Lee to me, but we'll see.

The film was so disappointing! I quite liked Lyra, the Gyptians were pretty much how I imagined, and Lee was really good, but otherwise, bleh. It was all far too timid and cut down and messed around with.


Edit: OMG I've just googled, and the NT version was in 2004?  I wasn't far too young at all, and I was going to the theatre regularly by then, so I have no idea why I didn't go. I wasn't going to London theatre then, maybe that's why. How odd - in my head, they were on donkeys years ago!

I thought I read it was 8 episodes for the whole trilogy, which conversely doesn't sound like quite enough.

Yes, but it could fall between two stools - the religion/sin/Milton/heaven aspect, which, to be honest, didn't appeal to me much as an adult reader and I'm sure would have bored or confused me as a child (are there any children who name The Last Battle as their favourite C. S. Lewis? We did it in school aged 10 and we all hated it!)

It's the C.S. Lewis that most reminds me of Pullman though, along with The Silver Chair, and the one he addresses when he criticises Lewis for casting Susan out of Narnia for her sexuality.

I’ve seen three different productions of the play version (NT, Birmingham Rep and a youth theatre version) as I desperately want it to work but each time it has come up short.

The issue is that the adaptation includes too much action within its six hours or so running time. It’s breathless and, as such, ends up being a shallower experience than it should be, There are interesting philosophical ideas in the stories that need time to breathe, to have characters just stop, think and relate their lives to something much larger.

Eight hours for three books? I fear that we would see the same problem, although screen storytelling can sometimes use shorthand techniques that might alleviate that. Eight hours for the first book would be just about right.